It is generally known that materials may be colored or visually enhanced by placing a decorative coating on a number of surfaces adapted for receiving the decorative coating. Some known surfaces include laminates and layered panels including PLEXIGLAS and LUCITE and other layered surfaces like FORMICA. PLEXIGLAS is a registered trademark of Arkema France Corp., LUCITE is a registered trademark of Lucite. International, Inc.
Acrylic sheets are generally commonly available, durable, relatively inexpensive, and may be produced with a variety of characteristics for various applications. However, generally, acrylic sheets have limited decorative tolerances and often require any decoration or colorization to be performed during the manufacture of the sheets. Typically, color may only be applied during the manufacture process where a generally uniform pigment or color is dispersed throughout the acrylic sheet during the pouring of the sheet. Creating decorative laminate layered materials using acrylic sheets has been problematic. In some cases, acrylic sheets have poor pigment adhesion, poor abrasion-resistance and are difficult to color or pattern.
In addition, some decorative laminate materials use a chemical composition to form a colored surface; however, some of these compositions release undesired gasses as a result of the chemical process. Without allowing for the release of these undesired gasses, the gasses can create unsightly distortions and may lead to trapped bubbles formed within the laminate material which in turn may lead to premature separation of the layered materials, causing the layered material to fail.
In addition, some laminate materials utilize transmitted light in providing a visual effect. However, using transmitted light through the laminate material may reduce the utilization of the laminate to a limited number of applications based upon the necessary light and the visual leakage presented by the surrounding environment and the translucent nature of the prior art laminates in which the underlying surface may be depicted. In some cases, underlying structures or other undesired objects may be visible. Some prior art attempts to limit this problem have attempted, to utilize a mounting material such as wood or fiber board to hide the visible structures, however, these attempts again come with their own disadvantages like the requirement to provide a mounting structure, increased cost, weight and thickness. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a non-transparent decorative layered laminate structure which overcomes these disadvantages.
Some patent applications discuss prior attempts to address the problem associated with decorating acrylic sheets including U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,603 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,235 which are hereby incorporated by reference. However, many of these prior art references have disadvantages or shortcomings which leave an unresolved need addressed by the present invention.
Heretofore, there exists a need for an improved system and process for creating decorative layered laminates which provides for a durable, decorative laminate material which may be layered as desired to address some of the above referenced disadvantages.